Accusing the Congress government in the State of failing to maintain law and order and addressing farmers’ problems, Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, has said that the countdown to the end of Congress rule in Karnataka has commenced. He was addressing a meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party district unit in the city on Monday to review the party’s preparedness for the forthcoming Assembly election.
He said that, as many as 22 activists had been killed in Karnataka after the Congress came to power but the State government failed to conduct a proper probe into the incidents. Accusing the activists of the Popular Front of India (PFI) and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) of indulging in unlawful activities, he said the State government has failed to curb their activities. He expressed displeasure against the delay in arresting the culprits responsible for the killing of writer M.M. Kalburgi and journalist Gauri Lankesh. The incidents of atrocities on women in Bengaluru have increased in recent times, he said.
Referring to the decision taken by the State government to waive the ₹8,165 crore crop loan borrowed by the farmers from cooperative banks, he said that the announcement on loan waiver was an eye wash exercise and the farmers will not be benefited much. “The government should have waived the crop loan borrowed by the farmers from nationalised banks also. It is unfortunate that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is demanding that the Union government waive the loan from nationalised banks. While the BJP governments in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra have waived huge sums of crop loans from cooperative as well as nationalised banks, the Congress government in Karnataka is reluctant to waive the loans borrowed by the farmers from nationalised banks. Mr. Siddaramaiah is trying to mislead the farmers over the issue,” he said.
